Ace's Tattoo
by Charlie's Rat
Summary: Ace meets up with Luffy, and one sunny afternoon the topic of Ace's tattoo comes up. Sabo, AceSaboLuffy bromance, memories. mild fluff.


_Bromance, Ace and Luffy, memories and Sabo. Enjoy._

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**Ace's Tattoo** _by Charlie's Rat_

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Luffy's fingers trailed down Ace's arm.

"Ace ..."

Luffy's deep black eyes flickered with troubled thoughts.

"Hm?"

Portgas knew the feeling in his arm.

"What's with the '_**S**_'? Is it ...?" Luffy trailed off. His fingers traced his brother's arm up and down, feeling every laceration and warm graze on his skin.

"Hm? Oh, the tattoo ..." Ace turned to look at his little brother, tone offhand. He sighed, leant against the railing of the Going Merry and looked up at the blue sky, dotted here and there with fluffy white clouds. They were so unlike the ones back at Grey Terminal, thick with polluted water and nearly always a murky grey. The sky was painted a dirty orange near the horizon, and he often found himself chocking on the foul gasses and humid air near the fire dump. _A mop of short-cut blonde hair shoved itself in front of his vision, and his deep blue eyes twinkled with badly restrained mischievous tendencies. Lips pulled back to show off a full blown grin, a tooth missing in the left corner― _

"Yeah. It's-"

His dream-like version of his youth disappeared. _Along with Grey Terminal, the polluted clouds, the bathhouse, Dadan's weak bandits, Makino's clothes —_

"Sabo?" Luffy interrupted, voice flat.

Across the deck, Usopp and Chopper chased after Zoro in a game of tag, the latter growling as Sanji's teasing remark floated from the kitchen over to them.

— _the giant crocs in the river, the tiger they captured, Luffy's tear-streaked face, cheeks bright red, when Bluejam's gang tortured him, all traces of Sabo and his goggled hat vanishing with a canon blast. — _

He turned and presented him with a wry smile, mouth crooked at one end, a dark spark in his eyes. "Yes. Sabo's mark."

— But Sabo's mark did not remove itself from his skin, etched and inked in. Controlled. Reigned in. Always with him. Selfishly close to Portgas's body of memories.

Luffy's face contorted into pain. His fingers tightened around his brother's biceps. "When did you-?"

"-Get it? A week after I left Dadan's place." Ace sighed, glanced at Luffy from the corner of his eye and stared up at the sky again. "I felt, ... I guess I felt like I owed him one. I felt guilty that he never got to ... _Go_. You know?"

"Mmm, hm." Luffy hummed from somewhere near his shoulder. His hair tickled his arm and set the nerves on fire. Figuratively speaking.

Somewhere from within the Going Merry, Nami's angry yell frightened away Usopp and the little doctor from playing in her map drawing room. The commotion disrupted a few seagulls perched on Ace's skiff, but otherwise didn't evoke a reaction in anyone else. Portgas tentatively spoke up, trying to at least get their conversation going somewhere.

"Sometimes I wonder what it'd have been like now, with him, you know?" Again, Luffy hummed into his neck. Ace wanted to submit to the down mood, to the reminiscing, to the fucking guilt he felt when he couldn't stop Sabo from going out to sea on that teeny boat with a huge _ASL_ slapped over the sail. Even thinking about the _Ace-Sabo-Luffy_ combo made his heart clench ruefully.

Luffy stirred from his perch on his shoulder and shifted to gain his attention. He looked into his brother's eyes, deep black and swimming in memories. "Nothing would have changed," he said quietly. Ace pondered about that. "The only difference would be that Sabo would be _here,_ with us now, with his _own_ pirate crew, telling us stories from _his_ great adventures."

Luffy's breath hitched. "But then again, Sabo is always with us," His fingers trailed down Ace's tattoo, and Ace felt his breath catch in his chest as he cottoned on to what his little brother implied. "or, at least with you."

Though it certainly shocked and piqued everyone's curiosity, none of the crew questioned the D brothers when they suddenly started bawling in the middle of the afternoon, or why they consumed double the amount of alcohol they normally drank during their festive meal at night.

The crew learnt between their drunken laughter and sobs that there's a chunk of Ace and Luffy's lives still stuck on the bottom of the sea with Sabo, and that sometimes remembering is painful, but that's why they fight and travel and make new friends-... so they can live for him. To live and experience the things that Sabo didn't get to see and do.

But, soon, everyone knew of brave Sabo the pirate's adventures.

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_NOTES: _I wanted to write some _bromance_ with Sabo, and wanted to make people remember _that their brother died. _Think about it. No one cares about those stupid and weak Marines that get killed and defeated, but really, if every single one of their lives and stories were told, and you knew their family and their histories, their connections, you'd also feel bad, and sad that they died. Wouldn't you?

Please review, this is my first One Piece story.


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